


For Everything

by fowl68



Series: Heartwishes [3]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Memories, Post-Game(s), SummonSpirit!Martel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fowl68/pseuds/fowl68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's painful to see her and he can't decide whether it's because of the similarity or the differences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Everything

* * *

 

  
_Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  
~From the television show _ The Wonder Years

* * *

 

It's painful to see her and he can't decide whether it's because of the similarity or the differences. Because she isn't Martel. Not quite. They're the same at first and even second glance, but he can see the differences.

Her eyes are too green, her skin too pale. She's missing the scar bisecting Martel's left eyebrow from a childhood accident. Her ears are elegantly pointed, closer to a true elf's, where Martel's had been triangular. Her voice isn't gently accented and she is too calm.

But she is just similar enough to make his heart ache and his fingers automatically begin twisting the ring—clinging ivy leaves made half of steel and half of gold.

Those too-green eyes will look at him and he feels very old at times like those. _(Because despite the fact that she's a Summon Spirit, she's a new one, one that hadn't existed before now)_ Often, they say nothing to each other, spending the long days in silences that were neither awkward nor comfortable. The silences simply hung there between them, slack and without tension.

"She remembers you," she says once, softly.

He freezes on instinct, his right hand stopping in his toying with the ring _(Kratos had said once that it was his nervousness that had him playing with it, that he couldn't believe it was there. Yuan was much more inclined to believe the latter, even if it had been four thousand years since he'd proposed because really, he hadn't expected her to say yes)_ "Is that so?"

"It is. Her memories of you are…what is your word…nice? Fond…yes, that sounds right. She has fond memories of you."

He doesn't reply, doesn't even look at her because he doesn't want to chance being able to see Martel behind those green eyesbecause then the ache will become so powerful that he thinks he would do anything to get her back _(That wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that he knew the process, that his mind could whisper it to him and then Mithos—lovely, shattered Mithos—would flash before him and he had to remind himself that she's_ gone _, gone and never coming back)_.

She is leaning closer and his eyes flick to her. "Is something wrong?"

She holds out her own left hand, studying it as though she'd never seen it before. "She has a ring. Just like yours. Why is that?"

He clenches his right hand into a fist because right now, all he wants to do is walk away, but he can't because there's no place for him to go and he'd only end up back here anyway, so he replies, "We were married."

"Married?" she repeats. "I know the word and I comprehend it, but I don't understand."

He pretends that he doesn't know what she means. "It's not something I'm going to explain. Get Lloyd to explain it to you, or the Ch—Colette." It isn't as though they don't visit often enough.

He does walk away then because he doesn't want to be there anymore, can't stand to stay still and he needs to _move_. So he walks until he can't hear her breathing anymore, can't hear the stream near the Tree, can't feel the soft tendrils of mana that it was giving off like soft jolts of electricity beneath his skin.

By the time he stops, he doesn't know where he is. Or rather, he knows logically where he is, but his mind doesn't seem to want to connect with logic right now. And he can still hear the echoes of her laughter.

" _So…when you said that you knew exactly where we were going, what you actually_ meant _was that you had no idea."_

_Yuan glanced back at her. Martel was fighting a grin, her basket of herbs in one hand and the other tucking errant strands of pale green hair out of her face. "You're not helping much either," he said._

_Martel was outright grinning now, making the dirt smeared across one cheek seem more prominent. "Well, you were being rather sexist with your, 'Men don't need directions or a map. We've got_ instinct _.'"_

" _You're enjoying this too much you know," he told her sourly, which only made her laugh._

" _Well it's not as if I win many arguments. Now I get to say 'I told you so'."_

" _You're so petty."_

" _Oh really? You are the last one to be talking about petty."_

" _And why's that?"_

" _You slipped tomatoes into Kratos' soup," Martel reminded him._

" _He had it coming. He laughed at my haircut."_

" _So did I. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen."_

 _Yuan's hand went to his hair a little self-consciously. He'd tried to cut it himself because he was tired of dealing with it—honestly, how did women do it?—and, to be fair, it_ had _looked rather ridiculous, but it was the principle of the thing._

" _Remind me again why we're married?"_

_Martel's grin turned impish and he had the sudden thought that she'd been around them too long. "Because you love me?"_

_He shook his head. "What could I have been thinking?"_

_She linked arms with him. "That there are very few women who can keep up with your strangeness and that you're lucky to have found even one?"_

" _Ah, yes…that's it." Yuan smiled down at her. "After all, how many other women could there possibly be that are as strange as you?"_

_Her silvery laughter rang out and she kissed his cheek. "Don't worry. I love you too."_

" _Good to know."_

"You do not like it when I speak about her."

He doesn't remember returning to the Tree, as he'd known he would because he is now a guardian to it as well because it was a promise --unspoken and only in his own mind--and he'd told Martel that he never broke his promises.

She is standing in front of him, lovely as a spring morning, one hand curled around her whitewood staff. "Why? She loved you."

"I don't owe you answers." Because she isn't Martel, even though his mind—constantly playing tricks on him—wants him to believe it.

She doesn't react to his cold tone. "She forgives you."

This time, his ancient heartbeat seems to thud loudly in his throat, his stomach somewhere near his toes. "What?"

"For what happened. She forgives you."

For letting Mithos go so far, for agreeing, for allowing the desperation and the need _(They wanted her back. Wanted her back bad enough that they were willing to risk anything, anyone, because she was_ theirs _and those…_ humans _…stole her from them in cold blood)_ For his loyalty, for not stopping this all sooner. For letting the vengeance take over. For everything.

This time, he lets himself see Martel behind her eyes, to find the caring, opinionated, sassy woman that he'd traveled and fallen in love with. "I'm sorry."

For everything.

She smiles at him—it's almost the same, except her smile is crooked and her lips are the wrong pink, too full and they weren't chapped—and doesn't say a word.


End file.
